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		<header>
			<h1><abbr title="digital restrictions management">DRM</abbr>-laden printer/scanner combo</h1>
			<p>Day 01411: <time>Wednesday, 2019 January 16</time></p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/01/16.jpg" alt="Short lamp post near stepping stones" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="hypnic">
	<h2>Hypnic jerk</h2>
	<p>
		I stumbled upon a condition that occurs in people sometimes as we fall asleep: the <a href="">hypnic jerk</a>.
		It happens to me every once in a while.
		For half a second, I think I&apos;m falling off the bed and have a sudden start, then realise I&apos;m in the middle of the bed and not even near the edge.
		I&apos;ve assumed it had something to do with a partial dream state.
		I&apos;m partly asleep when this happens, so I thought it might be the start of a falling dream, but without the visual or auditory parts of the dream having formed yet.
		According to the Wikipedia article, it&apos;s just an odd twitch people experience sometimes.
	</p>
	<p>
		I honestly hadn&apos;t given enough thought to these occurrences to even consider that there might be a name for them.
		When they happen, I remember that the same thing has happened in the past, but then I finish going to sleep.
		When I wake up, I don&apos;t even think about them again.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="scanner">
	<h2>Scanner</h2>
	<p>
		I mentioned wanting a scanner before.
		Today, I took a trip to the store to get one.
		I could only find one that claimed to support Linux, so that&apos;s the one I bought.
		When I got it home, I found it didn&apos;t work, so I did some research online.
		I found two things.
		First, it doesn&apos;t work without installing untrusted software.
		Second, even if you get it working, it&apos;s slow and buggy unless it gets a firmware update, and that firmware update cannot be installed except from a Windows machine.
		Depending on your viewpoint, I can see why some people wouldn&apos;t categorise the requirement of installing untrusted software as a problem.
		I don&apos;t want it on my machine, but I guess most people do.
		However, the box advertised Linux compatibility, not partial Linux compatibility.
		If you can&apos;t perform vital actions using Linux, such as installing required firmware to the device itself, that&apos;s not Linux compatibility.
		So I explained the situation to a representative and returned it on the grounds that the box had lied.
	</p>
	<p>
		The store had sent my receipt via email, so I had no choice but to bring in my laptop in order to bring in the receipt.
		So while I was there, I checked every scanner they had to see if it was <a href="https://sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html">supported by <abbr title="Scanner Access Now Easy">SANE</abbr></a>, the library that provides scanner support in Linux.
		None of their scanners were supported.
	</p>
	<p>
		When I got home, I tried working with that used printer I picked up a while back.
		I couldn&apos;t get it working before, but it has a built-in scanner.
		I figured I&apos;d check the list to see if it simply isn&apos;t supported, in which case I might as well give it away.
		It&apos;s got partial support.
		So I tried again toe get its scanner working.
		It kept flashing an error code at me though, so I looked into what it meant.
		The thing was out of paper.
		Really?
		It won&apos;t scan stuff because it&apos;s out of paper!?
		That&apos;s idiotic.
		I added paper ant power cycled it, and sure enough, the error message changed.
		The Internet tells me this new message means there&apos;s something wrong with the ink cartridge, such as that it&apos;s not installed correctly or that it&apos;s the wrong brand of cartridge, so the printer&apos;s <abbr title="digital restrictions management">DRM</abbr> is throwing a fit.
		I removed and reinstalled the ink cartridges though, and they&apos;re both the same brand as the printer.
		I also tried running the machine without the ink, but that didn&apos;t help.
		It might be that the <abbr title="digital restrictions management">DRM</abbr> is preventing the machine from running without ink and the ink cartridges are empty.
		Either way, the <abbr title="digital restrictions management">DRM</abbr> is definitely getting in the way of using the scanner when non-scanning-related resources aren&apos;t detected, which is a major quiescence.
		It makes the thing unusable for my purposes.
		I have no intent of buying more ink to satisfy some stupid <abbr title="digital restrictions management">DRM</abbr> system&apos;s nonsense.
		The only reason it wants me to buy ink before it lets me scan stuff is to strong-arm me into handing over more money to the manufacturer.
		I&apos;m not falling for that.
	</p>
	<p>
		I thought I&apos;d need to spend tomorrow following another lead I got.
		There&apos;s another second-hand store that has a large electronics section in the next town over.
		However, I managed to find an odd code that can be entered when booting the printer/scanner to put it in scanner-only mode.
		That allows it to function without halting due to the lack of ink.
		However, there&apos;s a catch.
		The scanner seems to only be good for a single scan before it refuses to perform another until it gets unplugged.
		Thankfully, it only needs to be unplugged from the computer, not from the wall, so the scanner-only-mode code doesn&apos;t need to be entered each time.
	</p>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t think the scanner is getting colours quite right, so my drawings aren&apos;t coming through well.
		That might be due to the amount of pastel ink I&apos;ve used though.
		The first part of the drawing I tried to scan was drawn before I&apos;d organised my pens very well, and ended up with pastel detailing.
		The ugly swirl pens I&apos;ve been trying to incorporate into my work are also pastel.
		And finally, the part of the drawing I added today is pretty much all pastel, specifically to match the swirl pens better.
		Maybe tomorrow I&apos;ll leave out the ugly swirl pens and use darker colours, and see if that helps.
		If not, I can still scan in line drawings if I draw them in black pen.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="employment">
	<h2>Seeking employment</h2>
	<p>
		I thought I&apos;d use my days off to job hunt like crazy, but there&apos;s just too much else that needs to get done.
		Today got eaten up by scanner-hunting.
		At some point, I have some cleaning I&apos;d like to get done before the coming term starts as well.
		I&apos;ll probably just stick to one job application per day, every day, I guess.
	</p>
	<p>
		For today, I applied to work in a craft store.
		I can&apos;t really stand behind the products of the company I work now.
		Crafts are something I can get behind though.
		I love to cross stitch, though I haven&apos;t had time to do it in years.
		I know how to sew as well, and now I&apos;m trying to teach myself how to draw.
		At some point, I&apos;d like to learn to knit as well.
		Maybe I could meet other creative people on the job.
	</p>
</section>
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